


In the Foreground

by Spaghettoi



Series: my varied-canon-compliance dreamsmp works [2]
Category: DreamSMP, Sleepy Bois Inc.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, as in. references to the festival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27543373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaghettoi/pseuds/Spaghettoi
Summary: "You haven't slept," Tommy says first. Tubbo's still muttering under his breath, quiet affirmations that ultimately won't make a dent in the darkness behind Tommy's eyes. He goes silent instead. His hands dig into Tommy's shoulders."You were having a nightmare," he says."No shit," Tommy says. There's no room for conversation. There's no room for much of anything at all.--(a small collection of character studies with an,,,, alternate ending)
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, Niki | Nihachu & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, shippers dni - Relationship
Series: my varied-canon-compliance dreamsmp works [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064765
Comments: 43
Kudos: 172





	1. leniency (the way the world turns)

**Author's Note:**

> hey all :) this should hopefully update once or twice a week - most of the rest of the fic is outlined or written. Enjoy :)

This is the way the world turns: 

Tommy lies in a bed next to his best friend and listens to their breathing until he's sure that it's the only sound in the universe.

Tubbo is a heavy sleeper. Ultimately, this is a good thing. Tommy spends nights of nightmares gasping awake in a bed and feeling as if the world is caving in; Tubbo's elbow brushes his and the world and it's caving has confined itself to his chest. This time he's shaken awake by wide eyes and hands on shoulders and an incomprehensible babble of comfort. Coherency was never either of their strong suits. 

"You haven't slept," Tommy says first. Tubbo's still muttering under his breath, quiet affirmations that ultimately won't make a dent in the darkness behind Tommy's eyes. He goes silent instead. His hands dig into Tommy's shoulders.

"You were having a nightmare," he says. 

"No shit," Tommy says. There's no room for conversation. There's no room for much of anything at all.

This is the way these things go, haunted by consistent nightmares that hardly have much to do with Wilbur or Schlatt or Manburg at all. He wanders hallways or drowns or gets stuck in seas of wide smiling faces. He hasn't seen a pair of ram horns once, hasn't seen his brother's superior grins or a firework loaded into a crossbow. 

Tubbo's fingers are still digging into his shoulders. He has the bizarre urge to peel them up one by one. Their eyes still bore into his, and their mouth is still moving, as if trying to decide what he wants to say.

Pogtopia is silent these days. Tubbo does not say anything more. Tommy does not ask for a hug. The walls of the ravine are frozen into the ground.

This is not the first nightmare that Tommy will have. It is certainly not the last.

“You shouldn’t be awake,” Tommy goes on. He wipes at his face. “You should be, like, passed the fuck out by now.”

“You were having a nightmare,” Tubbo says again, sounding confused and almost frustrated. 

“Yeah, but  _ you _ weren’t.”

Tubbo pauses, then quietly says “Maybe I was.”

In one startling, fell swoop, Tommy reacquaints himself with uncertainty. 

He's known Tubbo. Forever, it feels, it's been Tommy and Tubbo to the end. They're best friends. Should understand each other on some deep, intrinsic level, down to the smallest fault or freckle or secret. He knows their deepest fear. His favorite color. His morning routine, the color of his eyes, his shoe size. How to tell when he's angry or sad or tired or excited or nervous.

He does not know if Tubbo has been having nightmares.

He is not angry. The sudden wave of grief and loss and earth-shattering loneliness crashes over him until he's drowning in so many feelings he nearly starts crying. 

The war could take Wilbur. Could take Techno, could strip him from Phil or Fundy or Schlatt, even. Could take the country he built, the walls he helped elect to protect it. The strength of his right hand. The steadiness of his feet. The space between his ribs, right over his heart.

But the war could not take Tubbo. He'd said it to himself, sat on a bench that doesn't exist anymore, listening to a disc he's not even sure he gives a shit about. A silent promise, and he never breaks promises, that no matter what it takes, the war cannot take Tubbo from him.

And yet it has.

“Go back to bed,” Tommy says.

“Tell me about your nightmare,” Tubbo counters.

“No,” Tommy says. He's being difficult on purpose and they both know it. “Tell me about yours.” 

Tubbo flinches as if Tommy had just hit him, face drawn in sour distaste. He releases Tommy's shoulders. He doesn't say a word as he settles back into bed, drawing his blanket tight around his shoulders as if trying to block out the world itself.

Tommy rolls over and does not sleep the rest of the night. 

They cannot leave. They are stuck in a nightmare so real that his mind can only conjure nonsense. He's not sure which scares him more. When he shuts his eyes, thousands of faces with the grins of hungry men stare back at him, or the hallway is long and winding and sweltering hot, or the ocean swallows him whole and holds him down. He will be stuck in these places until he is roused from them, into a truth that feels so sinister it shouldn't be real - but he will not see Jschlatt in sleep for a long, long time.

So he wakes up the next morning in a cold sweat and makes a point to avoid his best friend. He spends the day with a thoroughly silent Quackity; Techno is out in one place or another, and Quackity, ever the drifter, seems to have decided upon the potato farm as a place of solitude in the same breath that Tommy has.

“Hey, Big Q.” 

The Q in question jumps about a foot in the air and whirls, holding the hoe he's got like a sword. It's almost funny - it's not a sharp tool, and yet in that moment Tommy can almost believe that Quackity could hurt him with it.

“You motherfucker,” he says, bringing the hoe back to his side. “You snuck up on me.”

“You're easy to sneak up on,” Tommy counters, bored. “D’you want some help?”

By the end of the day, they're both sweaty and drenched in mud. Quackity smiles at him, a foreign and careful thing, as they pack potatoes by the dozen into chests. They don't say a word, and yet Tommy re-emerges into Pogtopia’s freezing hallways realizing that Quackity has carved a deeper sense of respect into Tommy's heart than he started with.

Pogtopia is nothing if not working. When he wanders out from the farm, there is no-one waiting - Tommy's forced to seek out new company, and finds himself stumbling into Niki's new hideout, a small room carved into one of the walls, full of ovenborne heat and too much bread to know what to do with.

Niki herself is the same; neither Tommy and Tubbo nor Wilbur and Techno quite want her on their side, and yet Tommy feels that she's much more trustworthy than either of the other two from the sheer strength of her will. Most days, she's grueling and hard, baking as if she will die if she does not occupy her time fully and completely, existing conversationally as a woman so dense with information she could never hope to spit any of it out. 

Today, Tommy finds himself pleasantly surprised by a comfortable warmth and Niki pounding something that definitely isn't bread dough.

“Niki,” he says, and she looks up from her work without stopping in her kneading.

“Tommy!” The grin she wears is so real and true that it almost feels the opposite. “Come in! Do you want to help me?”

“Uh,” he says smartly, “what exactly are you doing?”

“Pie. I thought it'd be a nice change of pace, you know?”

He doesn't know. He's not sure he's ever had a change of pace, certainly not in the form of making a pie. Life is about efficiency, about morality, and here in Pogtopia, it's about staying alive. Not leisure. 

“Sure,” he says, standing beside her at the counter and taking the dough into his hands. It's flaky and dry and the exact opposite of the ration dough they use for bread. "I'll have you know, I make - and don't tell BadBoyHalo this, he'll throw a fit - I'll have you know that I'm the best damn baker you've ever seen.”

Niki giggles, actually, truly giggles, and Tommy finds himself laughing in a way he hasn't in a long time. Conversation is light; neither of them mention Wilbur, or bombs, or festivals, and maybe that's all for the better. They're not avoiding it, either, so it doesn't sit heavy around their feet like molasses as they talk. It just doesn't matter.

“So Tubbo’s doing better, then?” Niki asks eventually. She’s tearing the skins off of peaches now, the blanched peels coming off like their own little coats. It's a bizarre and childish thought that Tommy harbors in his mind for only himself.

“He's alright,” Tommy says. “Why, what's it matter?”

“Well - I just have not seen him with you today, is all. Usually you two are pretty inseparable. Especially since the festival.”

Tommy’s not really sure what to say to that. When he thinks of Tubbo, the first thing that comes to mind isn't even the guy himself. The first thing he sees is Techno. The next is a tight knot of scar tissue in the center of his chest, just below his collarbones, made a pair by the matching splatter across the bridge of his nose. 

It had been a long night for all of them. Respawns are always easy. The scars are a bit less so. 

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he says thickly, reaching for another peach. “Where’d you even get these things, anyway?”

“I had a tree back in L’manburg,” she says. “Well -  _ have _ a tree. Sometimes I sneak in for supplies.”

She still calls it L’manburg, some part of him says, and a bizarre sort of anger blisters at the skin of his heart. He’s not sure when it started being Manburg in his eyes, but it's clear that it never did in Niki’s.

Maybe that’s a good thing. He takes a coat off of a peach and nearly drops the body of it. Tries not to think of how he’s stopped considering his nation his own.

“What, and you don’t get caught?”

“No. Though, to be completely honest - I’m not really sure that Schlatt cares about what I do.”

It shouldn’t be a surprising conclusion to come to. It is, though, on some level. Tommy could almost say that they're similar in that way - torn apart by administrations and an unfortunately tense atmosphere, Tommy's sorry that he's never really talked to her before. The feeling of unnecessariness lingers in the slope of both of their shoulders. He guesses he's just lucky he escaped it, at one point or another. 

Tommy decides to let it stew. "Probably not," he says and grabs another peach from the ice water. Niki gives an appreciative hum and allows them to settle back into the rhythmic silence of pastry making.

It’s nearly three hours of work before it’s placed in the oven - the floor is covered in flour and Niki is covered in sugar and the hems of Tommy’s sleeves are damp with peach juice and neither of them really care. 

“I’m proud of it,” Niki says when it's out of the oven. The lattice has fallen through, turned black where it’s sunken into the filling - a little ocean of volcanic rock on a pink and orange sea. It’s ugly and smells a bit burnt. “I’m proud of us.”

“What?”

She smiles at him. It’s nothing like Wilbur’s predatory grin or Quackity’s prey-like one - just a smile, real and genuine. Tommy thinks that Niki, for all her hard fast stability or silence, might be the realest thing in the world. “We made a pie, and I’m proud of us.” 

“Huh,” Tommy says. “Yeah, yeah - proud.” 

Niki gives him the first piece. Tommy insists they share. It’s sweet and the crust is flakey and he’s never had pie, before, certainly not pie from Niki or anyone else within DreamSMP or its respective territories, and he thinks that maybe that makes it all the better. It’s a waste of good supplies, Wilbur or Quackity or Tubbo would say. 

It’s a good pie. 


	2. principle (the way the world burns)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nice place you got here.”
> 
> He does not whirl. He freezes, the same way he always does, and Schlatt does not say a word as he comes to stand between Wilbur and Chekhov's gun and turns the safety back on.
> 
> “Hey,” Schlatt says dully as he reaches into the pocket of his suit jacket. The air of ceremony has been sucked from the room, and dropped in its place is a thin, watery skin of dread. “Been a while.”
> 
> And he holds out a deck of cards.

This is the way the world burns:

Wilbur holds his finger over a button and does not press it.

Quackity and Tommy are not here to stop him. Instead, it's Jschlatt in that room with him, and Jschlatt has been shuffling his deck for 32 seconds.

It does not start this way. It starts with Wilbur on the edge of Manburg with tinder in his eyes and the lighter in his hands. Schlatt sits on the hill that once held his White House and remembers the bunker that lives beneath it instead, and when Wilbur disappears beneath the trees, he contemplates the situation with an ancient, heavy sigh.

It feels ceremonial, being back here. This is his control room. This is his defining moment, packed into this little word-scrawled coffin and left to be necromanced. He hardly wants to touch anything, let alone breathe in here - there’s a feeling of history to come that he can’t bring himself to disturb, yet. The moment has to be right. 

He steps carefully around the explosives on the floor, around the redstone dust, and situates himself in front of the button. Damned thing, that button must be - he scrapes a thumb over the wood grain of one of the signs, stares at the button like it's the eye of some massive beast he has to bother. One tap and all this is over, albeit on less than savory terms - just one simple movement and a respawn and nobody wins - 

“Nice place you got here.”

He does not whirl. He freezes, the same way he always does, and Schlatt does not say a word as he comes to stand between Wilbur and Chekhov's gun and turns the safety back on.

“Hey,” Schlatt says, emotionless as he reaches into the pocket of his suit jacket. The air of ceremony has been sucked from the room, and dropped in its place is a sheer, watery skin of dread. “Been a while.”

And he holds out a deck of cards.

Wilbur does not say anything. The staredown is long and intense and by the end of it, heavy. But Wilbur does not press a button. Wilbur takes a deck of cards and sits on the floor of his own tomb with a man he'd believed would put him in it.

They are playing double solitaire. It does not matter who wins. They don't even count the cards as they rescue the aces from the stacks, sorting the respective soldiers of the Hearts and Spades. Surprisingly, Schlatt does not cheat. 

Wilbur doesn't either. 

"You’re fucking garbage at this," Schlatt says first. The ace of clubs does not have a single one of Wilbur's cards. The insult nearly sends Wilbur's fist into Schlatt's ugly mug, but he takes a second to think and realize that he nearly missed the note of humor in Schlatt's tone. He wasn't even listening for it. He forgot what it sounded like.

So he says, “You're worse,” and Schlatt barks a laugh that echoes off of the smooth stone walls and back into his throat. 

“And you look like shit,” Schlatt adds. “And you fuckin’ stink.”

“I know,” Wibur says. Schlatt nods, long and drawn with his face all screwed up. Wilbur offers him the rest of his deck, and Schlatt takes it the same way he would a serious handshake. 

They play rounds until the lantern hung from the ceiling is brighter than the light coming through the door. Wilbur probably loses all of them. He finds that he's being honest when he insists that he doesn't care. It's a freedom he didn't expect, but one that he's grateful for nonetheless.

“Hey,” Schlatt says offhandedly. He’s put his cards back into an orderly stack and is shoving them back into the pocket of his coat. “Uh - Wil. D’you still sing at all?”

He blinks. There are so many things wrong with those words, with the way Schlatt is holding himself, defensive and so ready to explode - and yet all Wilbur can think about is how he doesn’t have an answer. 

There are no guitars in Pogtopia. He hadn’t thought to pack his, left it somewhere in the Hto Dog van and hoped that it burned instead of suffering unplayed. There’s no time for singing anymore. There’s a war to be had. A nation to destroy. A life to forget, slipped between a crack in two worlds, unable to be reached from where it’s fallen in.

“No,” he says. “I don't.”

“Huh.” Schlatt holds his hand out for the other deck, and Wilbur gives it to him, all the cards put back in their proper order with hearts on top. “Come by Manburg tomorrow,” Schlatt says. “You can come play for us. Just like old times.”

Wilbur does not know what to do. Schlatt doesn't have to specify “we”, and the concept of seeing his son sends a rock of fear plummeting into the chasm of his stomach. Old times, too, need no clarification; he can see THE now, can see THE’s stage and the audience out beyond it and the guitar in his hands. He snaps himself out of it at the sound of the door hatching shut behind him. The room feels a lot darker. At least it isn't cold anymore. 

Schlatt leaves a lit match on the floor of an explosive-loaded bunker. The match decides that it will not ignite. It has always had too strong a will for its own good. 

The next morning, Wilbur rises early. He does not ruffle Tommy's hair on the way up, nor does he pull the blankets up beneath Tubbo’s chin. He does not bid the two of them to sleep in. He ignores them, packs a bag and doesn't care how loud it is, leaves his sword by the door and skitters out from the crumbling operation without so much as a backwards look. He does not think that he will come back.

Manburg is as empty as it was yesterday. The sky is cloudy, today, and the sun rises with crimson streaks across the sky that look like the work of a bloodied, dragging hand. It’s beautiful and tragic and symbolic in a literary way he would have cared about, at one point.

There is something to be said for Chekhov’s gun. There is something to be said for the way he has left it up on the wall, and the ammunition he has tossed into the river.

Sometimes, things are only meant to set the scene. 

He’s not sure where exactly Schlatt wanted to meet. He decides that marching up to the podium is his best bet, what with the White House in ruin and Schlatt’s drifting lifestyle. Lo and behold, Schlatt’s up there, sat with a guitar in his lap and his back up against the ghastly yellow concrete. (Sometimes Wilbur questions his own design choices.) He doesn’t turn, doesn’t acknowledge Wilbur on the floor of the square some fifteen feet below him, just continues chattering to - 

Oh. 

Fundy is on the floor of the stage, howling with laughter about something or another. Wilbur is struck with a writhing uncertainty that chose not to make itself known yesterday. He stares up at the podium, his son and his oldest friend thick as thieves, and thinks that this might have been the wrong choice.

It takes two proper seconds before Fundy lays eyes on him, sitting up from the floor and spotting him as he wipes his eyes. He gives pause, just long enough for his eyes to dull and Schlatt to catch that something’s up - and then Schlatt’s leering over the edge of the stage, guitar shoved haphazardly into Fundy’s arms.

“Wil!” he hollers. “You finally showed up!”

“I did,” he hollers right back. There’s a tick of tense silence. Wilbur isn’t sure what to do with his hands. 

“The fuck’re you still doin’ down there?” Schlatt says, and Fundy snorts when he slides seamlessly into the old bit. “What, you not gonna come up here? You’re not gonna come?”

“What if I don’t?” Wilbur shoots back, but he’s already laughing and scrambling up the hill to the stage. “What, you gonna - you gonna make me come?”

“Maybe I will!”

“Fuck off,” Wilbur says as he comes round the back, sits on the floor where Schlatt pats it, and completes their little triangle. 

The three of them seem to exhale at the same time. 

“Schlatt,” Wilbur says with a nod in his direction. Schlatt nods back at him, all solemn like. “Fundy.”

Fundy contemplates him for a second. The slit pupils make him a little more than unnerving, more often than not, and this certainly qualifies. The relaxation of his body language is so false that Wilbur thinks he could pick out each tendon holding him stiff just by looking at them. 

“Hey, Wilbur,” Fundy says, and he smiles. His fangs stick out if his mouth like they did when he was younger. For all the teeth bared, the atmosphere is anything but aggressive.

Wilbur begins to think that this is what progress looks like.

He nods and runs a hand through his hair. The festival looks different from up here; nobody’s taken the decorations down, yet, and they hang a bit heavy with false celebration. “God,” Wilbur says, “this is quite a sad little affair.”

“Only cause you showed up,” Fundy says. 

“Piss off,” Wilbur says. It’s not even a challenge, the way he used to explode when things were different - it’s playful banter from an even earlier time, and it hits him like a kick to the face. Fundy takes it the same way, it seems, with an aghast sort of confusion that blooms into an uncharacteristic giggle. 

“Being honest,” Fundy says with a shrug. 

Wilbur rolls his eyes. “Hand me the guitar, yeah?”

“You told him he could sing?” Fundy asks with a pointed look. He clutches the guitar a bit tighter to his chest - the whale scratched into the front is proud like an emblem, peeking out from the Fundy’s sleeve. 

It’s Wilbur’s guitar, alright, in one piece with only a few out of place scratches. Looks like it didn’t get lost in flames after all, but Wilbur’s almost certain it hasn’t gone unused. “What,” he asks, “you gonna play for us instead?”

“I’ve been learning,” Fundy says, sheepish and almost defensive. Wilbur’s heart swells a little in his chest. “Schlatt, why did you tell him -”

Schlatt splays his hands, helpless. “I don’t know what you want me to say -”

“Let me have it -” he bats at the guitar, and Fundy shoots to his feet, holding it over his head -

“You can’t have it, D-  _ Wilbur _ -”

“Fundy -”

" _Fundy -_ ”

The three of them are stood now, any pretense of civility or seriousness abandoned as they each level themselves in some mockery of a fighting stance. Like they’re children.

Like they’re all children.

In the span of three seconds, Fundy has shot off down the hill, Schlatt is on his tail as he grabs for the neck of the guitar, and Wilbur is left reeling in a world of pasts; Fundy first, young and stout and attention seeking as he works with a crossbow, then Schlatt, plowing himself through his work with a ferocious desperation, grin on his face as he paints his future in gold, and finally Wilbur himself, stood in front of a portal with nothing but the guitar on his back and the world beneath his feet.

Maybe they’ve all been growing up just a bit too fast.

“Wil! Come on!”

There’s Fundy, of course. Sometime two years ago he would have said no; would have proclaimed work or governing or exhaustion and stayed firm at his desk. Today, he hollers “Coming!” after his son and lets the lightness in his chest blow him out into the festival square. 

He never does get his hands on the guitar. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why and how is the war tomorrow


	3. tenor (the way the world cries)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Thanks,” Tubbo says quietly. “For, like, everything. You were a really good vice president.”
> 
> He does not apologize for leaving. 
> 
> It is this moment - Tubbo in his arms and gear packed on horses and Tommy cool and impatient but the both of them marked red with obvious contentment - this moment with the world laid out in front of the three of them that Quackity decides he is through with waiting for the things he wants.

This is the way the world cries:

Quackity sits in the middle of Tommy's embassy and watches his only allies pack up and run.

The war is over. The war never even started. Wilbur is not welcome in Manburg, and Wilbur still shows up in Manburg, and Schlatt greets him with a grin and a friendly insult or doesn't greet him at all. Tommy is not welcome in Manburg, and Tommy still shows up in Manburg, and he's scooping Tubbo into a surprisingly reciprocated hug just in time for Quackity to feel painfully, painfully alone.

In technicality, Quackity should not be allowed in Manburg, either. Schlatt does not acknowledge him when he wanders into the square, or sits on the old, crumbling blackstone and looks over the ruins of the festival. Not much has changed, and yet when he comes that morning, Schlatt is a new man.

Still no smile for Quackity. He thinks distantly of their fight and finds that the wound still tears deep into the knot of emotion in his stomach. He hasn't fastened his crossbow to his belt since then.

So Manburg regains its L. There is no treaty to be signed, no decree made in front of the people - no people to decree in front of. There is simply the scrubbing of paint from the sign and the silent welcome of old friends. 

Neither of them really look okay, Quackity notes with distaste. Wilbur fucking stinks, hands moving fanatically as if unanchored from his body. Schlatt looks unhinged, eyes wide and grin tight and body some bizarre, unnerving mix of languid and coiled. The situation itself is so ridiculous that it makes him want to cry. They hug. It's sweet in the same way rotting fruit is, and makes him wrinkle his nose.

He scowls and stalks off from Manburg - L’manburg - whatever the fuck it is - before he can rethink his decision. When he gets to the top of the path, he looks back down over the nation he once held and wonders what exactly went wrong.

Maybe it was the fight. Maybe he really was the problem, here, and his fight with Jschlatt left the land sanded down enough to begin succession again, a new era of leadership breaking through the blackstone rubble into some weedy groundcover that's intent on snagging the toe of his boot and sending him slamming into the earth. 

No one is to blame. The truth is that everyone is to blame and no one is going to admit it, and so the war came and went of its own volition like the changing of the seasons. The cyclical motion of something that will inevitably return when Fundy finally grows a pair or Tubbo finally snaps and breaks. 

Nothing about it is good. Nothing about it is the way that it should be, and it's not the happy ending that any of them deserve. His chest burns with the injustice of it all. He treks back down the path and prays to Prime that this is all some stupid nightmare.

“Big Q!” 

He stops. He's got Ninja’s house on his left, bless that man, and on his right, Tommy's. Tubbo is beckoning him from the blown front of the building, chipper smile a stark contrast to the rubble of the crumbling facade.

He is, maybe, the last person that Quackity had wanted to see tonight. Tubbo is rarely happy, if ever, and yet the stupid fucking grin is practically carved into his face. He can't tell if it's genuine or not. He thinks that maybe this is the worst thing to happen to him.

He is proven right in the quite unceremonious announcement of surrender.

“Well,” Tommy says, “not surrender.”

“But we _are_ leaving,” Tubbo adds.

“We are.”

 _Why?_ Quackity wants to ask. Surely this is all that they've wanted. Things are happy and Wilbur's in power and Schlatt isn't being a massive fucking dickwad, for once in his life. This is perfect. Why would they leave when everything's perfect?

He doesn't ask. They give no reasoning. Secrets make a fine currency for people who plan not to be found. 

“D’you think we should go to the jungle?” Tommy asks, rifling through his enderchest. He shimmies a chestplate on. “Are you packing your bees? Wait, do we still want to build big a house in a meadow -”

Tubbo does not answer, just gives him a fond smile and shoots Quackity one of the same kinship. Knowingness, almost. _Classic Tommy._ Ha. As if Quackity would fucking know.

So they leave, then, on a horse that Tommy insists on taking the reigns for. Goodbyes are short and tenuous. Tommy is surprisingly pleasant, as is the hug that Tubbo gives him.

“Thanks,” he says quietly. “For, like, everything. You were a really good vice president.”

He does not apologize for leaving. 

It is this moment - Tubbo in his arms and gear packed on horses and Tommy cool and impatient but the both of them marked red with obvious contentment - this moment with the world laid out in front of the three of them that Quackity decides he is through with waiting for the things he wants.

“Stay safe,” he mutters, squeezing the kid’s shoulder. Tubbo nods so ferociously as if he hadn’t thought to do that already, smiles at him one more time, and lets Tommy pull him one handed into the saddle. 

Quackity stands in front of Tommy’s embassy and feels for all the world like he’s missing something. The horse canters down the Prime path towards Dream’s old base, and Quackity watches them go, silently willing the chatter to quiet and the horse to turn and for Tommy to extend him a hand, pull him up onto the horse and ride off, just the three of them. 

None of that happens, of course. Tommy leaves and Tubbo with him and they don’t look back. Quackity wishes he shared the utter gall to follow in their footsteps, whether metaphorical or physical, but he doesn’t, and he won’t, and he isn’t keen on feeling sorry for himself. He’s been doing far too much of that. He takes a seat on the crumbling stoop of Tommy’s base, wraps his arms around himself, and watches the world titter. 

Maybe it wasn’t the fight. Maybe it was still his fault - but maybe it always has been. It’s in his nature to sit and watch the world go by like this, isn’t it, and maybe, just maybe, he should have known that the pieces wouldn’t fit together. L’manburg never stopped changing, no matter how everlasting the walls. He’s just a bit too solid. 

Probably best to get moving. He needs some sort of floorplan, he thinks, and maybe that’s part of his issue - whatever. He watches pairs of feet march down the Prime path, dragging swords and loot behind them, voices chattering in an upheaval of negative energy. The whole of DreamSMP has flipped on its head because of this stupid nation. 

A nation that Quackity could have had, mind you. A nation that he was supposed to help lead, to keep shit like the rickety fucking festival from tearing it apart - a place he was intent on holding as an almost “told ya so” and instead drew the short stick even from within the “it” crowd. He should have been at the top. He would have been at the top. 

“Quackity?”

Prime, he needs to get out of here.

“George?” he doesn’t bother to turn, just buries his face in his knees and huffs against the cold. Some wild, airy cackle escapes him. “What’re you - what’re you doing here?”

“Heard about Schlatt. And Wilbur,” he adds, “but mostly Schlatt.”

“Course you did,” Quackity says. There’s a tense and incredibly fake nonchalance to the conversation that makes Quackity feel like he’s going insane. 

“Pretty crazy,” George says softly. He sits beside Quackity on what’s left of the stone wall. The silence wraps around them like a fire blanket. 

It used to be easy to talk to George. Now, though, the words clog in his throat. He’s not sure what he’d even say. Sorry? Thank you? Something he’s already said a million times before, or something he never wanted to in the first place? Surely at that point it just isn’t worth it anymore. Maybe they’ve just run out of things to talk about. 

George clears his throat uncomfortably. Quackity watches him fidget his glasses out of the corner of his eye. “I wanted to check on you,” he says, each word articulate and careful in that George way, and that's what finally pops the sick bubble sat between Quackity's collar bones. 

“Fuck you,” Quackity bites back. “No, no, fuck you, dude.”

“Wh - what did I do?!”

“You were my running mate!” Quackity says, shooting to his feet. He’s not sure where this came from, but once he starts talking, he knows he can’t stop. “And you didn’t even show up for the election!”

“Endorsement speeches,” George amends under his breath.

“Shut it. You’re gonna listen to me talk,” Quackity hisses, “and you’re not gonna say shit until I’m done. Okay?”

George looks at him with an unreadable expression, lips pressed into a thin line, and gives him a slow, slow nod. 

“Good.” Quackity sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “You - Prime, George, it’s like you didn’t even fucking care! You agree to be my running mate and then, as soon as we win, it’s like you stopped giving a shit! What the fuck, man? What the actual _fuck?_

“And, just when I think, ‘oh, maybe he’s gone for good, and this stupid fucking war is over and I can be happy, here, and yeah, Tommy and Tubbo might have left -”

“Tommy and Tubbo are gone?”

 _“Shut up!”_ Quackity all but shrieks. George freezes, slack-jawed, before swallowing and looking down. Quackity heaves in a breath, running his hands through his hair. “The stupid -” he’s pacing and the words aren’t coming right out of his mouth, they all sound lopsided and dumb, as if someone’s snagged the logs out from the fire and told him to keep it going - “the stupid war is over and maybe Tommy and Tubbo are gone but things are normal, now, and nothing’s gonna change anymore - just when I think that, look who decides to fucking show up!”

The silence swallows the entire clearing like a beast, spanning from the far wall of Tommy’s embassy out to the borders of L’manburg. Quackity wants to take it into his hands and gut it. Instead, he wipes at his eyes and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his stupid suit jacket. 

“I’m sorry I disappeared,” George says quietly. Quackity wishes he would shout more than he’s wished for anything in the entire world. 

Quackity scoffs. “Sure you are.”

“I am,” George says, firmer. “Look - you know how Dream can get, it’s not like it’s my fault -”

“You were my first friend here,” Quackity hisses, furious, stalking across the clearing in the span of seconds and jamming his finger into George’s chest. “Tommy invited me on and wouldn’t let me in. You were the first one.”

George looks very much like he’s regretting his decisions. “I - I don’t -”

“ _‘You - you don’t -’_ shut up, man. Just shut up.” George doesn’t answer, just turns his face away towards the horizon.

So that’s that, then.

“I’m leaving,” Quackity says, and as soon as he does he knows it’s true. “You can,” _you can come with me,_ “you - just - I’m leaving.”

“Where will you go?” George asks. 

Home is the first word that comes to mind. He doesn’t even know where that is anymore. “Somewhere far,” he settles on instead, and George nods, small. 

He doesn’t say a word as Quackity stalks to Tommy’s enderchest. He rifles through it, throws on his strongest armor - it hangs heavy and uncomfortable over his frame - he hasn't donned this shit in a long, long time. His swords, his potions, his hoodie, all tucked into his inventory. He has nothing to take to remind him of the Schlatt administration, nor of his time there. Maybe that's a good thing. George is silent through all of it, watching him with a critical, solemn eye, glasses fumbled in his lap. In yet go his pickaxes, a set of flint and steel, ten chobbled pieces of obsidian, and after a beat of deliberation, his crossbow. The chest shuts with a thump of finality. He hides his hands in his pockets to stop them from shaking.

He’s nearly to the gates of the embassy when George calls “I’m sorry.”

Quackity feels the smallest bit of his will crumble. 

“You don’t have to forgive me,” he says, “but I really am sorry.”

He shouldn’t turn. He really shouldn’t turn. 

“And I can’t come with you. I’ve got - I have obligations here. But I’ll walk you to the portal if you’ll let me.”

Quackity can practically hear the way George’s fingers knot together in his tone. Can practically see the way his face is screwed up beneath his stupid glasses.

He turns. 

“Fine,” he says shortly, and George’s expression is filled with a foreign relief as he stands from the rubble and hurries down the path towards Quackity.

The walk to the portal is filled by a surprisingly companionable silence. George walks at his side - Quackity can only wonder how cold he is in sneakers. They pass through the old base, walk the paths that cross the lake, and come to stand up on the hill, portal giving a low hum of energy as they near it. 

“You don’t have to leave,” George says. “You could just, I dunno, build a new house or something.”

That one tears a genuine laugh from his chest. It’s replaced by a foamy, lofty sort of clarity - if his final searches of Pogtopia, L’manburg, and DreamSMP lands have shown him anything, it's that there's nothing for him here. “Nah, nah. I really do.” 

“This is it, then,” George says with a sad grin. “I’ll see you ‘round, Big Q.”

“You too,” Quackity says, and he steps through the portal. 

The nether is, as always, hot and obnoxious and generally overwhelming. His first step in feels like trodding through soup, in a ridiculously ironic way, and the next few don’t feel much better. But he makes it - picks a direction and starts moving, mining through netherrack until his fingers blister against his pickaxe.

Good, he decides. He needs the callouses. 

It’s at the head of a bastion where the whole thing goes to shit; he drills into it on accident, blackstone crumbling out with the load of netherrack into some sick mixture of bitter nostalgia. Two more swings and the wall caves in, three more steps and he’s out in the thick of it with four hoglins clamoring up out of the lava. Sick creatures, he thinks, possessing a certain humanity that lures them deep into the uncanny valley, and he can only slice through two of them before the crowd is wider than he can count.

So maybe he’s gotten himself in over his head. 

He slashes through another before he’s booking it through the crowd, gangling arms and legs that swing after him as he clambers through the halls of the bastion and into an upper level. He blocks the hole with a haphazard pile of netherrack, packs it down with the heel of his boot, and whirls to find a sword leveled at his throat. 

“Oh,” Technoblade says, subdued in signature fashion. Quackity feels the blade press against his adam’s apple before it’s being sheathed with a long, dramatic flourish. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Yeah,” Quackity says. He straightens his helmet and resists the sudden and inexplicable urge to cry. 

Neither of them knows what to say, and Quackity can’t think of a single joke to crack. He’s damp with sweat and cracked with heat and panting from whatever desperate, fever-fueled idea has led him here. There isn’t a single middle-ground between them that Quackity can remember, and it makes him long for a strand of familiarity out here in hell. 

“You walk here?” Techno asks. 

“How else would I fuckin’ get here?”

“Elytra,” Techno shrugs. Shit, he hadn’t even noticed them - the wings flutter ‘round his shoulders and settle on his back, dragging loosely on the ground behind him like a grey, pearlescent blanket. “You’re interrupting my raid.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Have ya met me?” Techno says, and whatever power-bound intimidation he possessed is replaced with the geeky snark of an English major. There’s only the thinnest illusion of charm behind it. Quackity smiles anyway.

The bastion is a relatively easy conquer, considering his less-than-savory entrance. Quackity gets in the way more often than he helps, but maybe that’s the fun of it - snagging the loot from the chests fills him with relief and hope and his inventory with an excess of gold nuggets. 

“Got a place to be?” Quackity asks, wiping the sweat from his brow. Techno looks up from his sword with piqued interest written on his features.

“Not really,” he says. “Why, you got a place you want me?”

“I’m starting over,” Quackity says. “If you wanna.”

“If I wanna,” Techno parrots slowly. “Any particular place in mind?”

Quackity shrugs, the weight of the nether and the possibility of a companion sat heavy on his shoulders. “Someplace cold, you can bet your fuckin’ ass.”

Techno snorts, scratching at the back of his neck in uncharacteristic anxiety. “I mean, if you’ll take me, I don’t see why not.”

“Hell yeah, motherfucker,” Quackity says, and the smile that trumps his face is nothing if not true and giddy. 

Traipsing through the nether isn’t exactly easy, and Quackity suddenly regrets the lack of planning he put into this. The wings were a smart decision - he’s shaking, he realizes, adrenaline and exhaustion pumping double-time through his veins until he feels properly dead on his feet. He’s slowing them down, he thinks, and in the same breath remembers that there is so little destination that everything else has faded into unimportance. There is, quite literally, only the journey, and as such the scenic route is all but encouraged. 

“Still, though, it’d be nice to see those things in action,” Quackity says, shouldering at Techno so the elytra flutter up behind him. They look significantly more green in the warm light of the nether. “Sorry you can’t put ‘em to use, I guess. Seems like a bit of a fuckin’ waste.”

“It’s nothin’,” Techno insists. “I’m low on fireworks anyway.”

And boy, doesn’t that hit like a punch to the gut.

The words fall flat to the floor and take the mood with it. Recognition and discomfort echo with a single change in the way they’re standing, and in moments it’s not about the nether or about George or about a new start - it’s about Tubbo. 

The same Tubbo who is hopefully starting over, setting out with his best friend into an unknown world that they’re both betting on being kinder than the present one. The same Tubbo who ran from stability when he knew it was killing him, making an example of himself and the strength he has over anyone else in the SMP - the ability to recognize when to stop. The very same Tubbo, Quackity realizes, whose near-constant, infuriatingly sunny disposition was never false, but a Pavlov. Quackity hates him, sometimes - hates this kid who’s done objectively nothing wrong, unless you count loyalty or hard work or a strong standing moral compass.

Tubbo's probably one of the best people he’s ever met. Better than Quackity by a longshot, and all it took was three years less in age and decades more in trauma. 

“Techno,” he says lowly, “why did you do it?”

Confusion clutters Techno’s face for a moment before he stills, mouth pressed thin. He doesn't answer, not immediately; just shifts his pickaxe in his arms, and just as quietly as Quackity had asked, confesses “I don't know.”

It's not the answer he'd been expecting. It's exactly the answer he'd been expecting. Techno fumbles for his words for a moment, trying to backtrack. “It's like - Schlatt's not even my president, y’know? But he told me to do somethin’. So I did it.”

Quackity looks at Techno and does not recognize him. Whoever is stood at his side, it's not the same guy who shot Tubbo until he was forced to respawn. The patriotic glamour of fireworks doesn’t live in his eyes any longer - instead lies a different beast, one so pertinently sick of fighting that he can taste the exhaustion on the tip of his tongue as clearly as the sulfur. 

“Wilbur's got Manburg back,” he says. He feels like each word is clawing its way out of his mouth, begging to flood with the rest of them into the unending well at his feet. “Well - L’manburg, now. Again. Joint administration.”

Technoblade blinks with unsettling slowness. “Wilbur’s _what?_ ”

“Yeah,” Quackity says. “Back together. Went to couple’s therapy, or something, I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“So he didn’t blow it up?”

“Nope,” Quackity says with valiant uncaringness. He goes back to mining netherrack - throws his shoulders into it, ignores the sweat gathering at his hairline. “Just decided he didn’t want to, or something. Noble change of heart.” Techno raises his eyebrows at him in clear disbelief. “Place is fine,” he hashes, and Techno frowns but puts his hands up in a firm, fearful capitulate. 

Which is objectively funny, Quackity thinks. He’s sat on the low end of the intimidation scale, Techno teetering on the tip of the other side, and the sudden shift in dynamic is a bit shaky-footed but hilarious nonetheless. A hollow echo of power resonates through his chest, and when he goes back to mining, Techno mines beside him with fitting pacing. 

He is in the driver’s seat. Somehow, almost miraculously, he is in the driver’s seat, and there is nothing in the world better than the feeling of control over this exact moment. He grins at Techno, and Techno grins back at him, albeit a little confusedly - and Quackity gets it, then. He has to have gotten it. 

Maybe it wasn’t the fight. Maybe it wasn’t even him. Maybe the world as he knew it was just meant to go to shit, after all - and maybe Manburg was always meant to return to the safety of its primordial leadership, and maybe he was always meant to be separate from it. It’s a lot of ‘maybe’s. 

It’s enough certainty for Quackity to get his hands around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the finale huh  
> genuinely might write something for it, probably wind up doing art instead, i suppose we'll see :)  
> final update will be sometime this week :)


End file.
